Mid of March 2016 I visited the RobotChallenge in Vienna. http://www.robotchallenge.org/
RobotChallenge is Europe's largest competition for autonomous robots. I was amazed to meet and exchange with teams from so many foreign countries. Since 2004 teams from 56 countries with more than 2,000 robots have competed in 15 different disciplines.
The most amazing aspect for me was the dedication and enthusiasm of the teams. Murphy's law states "If anything can go wrong, it will". Imagine you worked for weeks and month on your robot hardware and software. Then you have your 30 seconds of fame and a wheel falls off, a fuse blows or the inevitable software defect makes you fail. Believe me, tears have been shed!
Amongst comradely, friendly competition etc. competing at Robotchallenge is teaching us an important life lesson: "be prepared"!
Fortuna meant it well with Germany so we collected a medal, too.
Back in 2014 I participated myself with my line follower robot epic.
Best, Mark